Probabilistic Risk Modelling at the Wildland Urban Interface: The 2003 Cedar Fire

1. Probabilistic Risk Modelling at the Wildland Urban Interface: the 2003 Cedar Fire, II David R. Brillinger, Statistics UC Berkeley (brill@stat.berkeley.edu, www.stat.berkeley.edu/~brill) Benjamin Scott Autrey, PopularMedia Inc. (Sequoia Ventures) (benjamin.scott@gmail.com) Matias D. Cattaneo, Economics UC Berkeley (cattaneo@econ.berkeley.edu)

2. Data preparation, data preparation, data preparation Booker’s Law An ounce of application is worth a ton of abstraction.

3. Overview. A story of wildfires at the urban-wildland interface “… where humans and their development meet or intermix with wildland fuel.” Federal Register (2004) Getting/preparing data – yiiiih Focus on the San Diego County Cedar Fire of 2003 Looking for: associations with explanatories, understanding of movement, … Trying to understand costs - losses of life, property, animals, social cost (veg), private cost (home), fire suppression, … Insurance premium?

4. The Cedar Fire. 25 October – 4 November, 2003 15 deaths, 6000 firefighters, 2232 homes, 273246 acres, many evacuations, … (All ±) Santa Anna conditions A disaster Large amounts of data, but …

7. J. Gibbons

8. Some formalism. Spatial marked point process Data (xi , yi , Mi ) (xi,yi): location, Mi: mark How to describe a point process X? dX(x,y)/dxdy = Σ δ(x-xi,y-yi) Dirac delta Rate/intensity μX(x,y) = E{Σ δ(x-xi,y-yi)}

9. Perhaps Y a subset of X (e.g. destroyed) Ratio of rates p(X,Y) = μY(x,y) /μX(x,y) Useful for comparison, …

10. How to describe a m.p.p. dU(x,y)/dxdy = Σ Miδ(x-xi,y-yi) Average νU(x,y) = E{Σ Miδ(x-xi,y-yi)} Thinning with Mi = 0 or 1 randomly yields p.p. Y subset of X Ratio of averages νV(x,y)/νU(x,y)

11. Logit-gam model Logit{Prob[destroyed|explanatories]} = αj with j vegetation class = β(x,y) with (x,y) location = γ(s) with s slope = δ(a) with a assessed improvement value = α + β + γ + δ + (αβ) + … After first case, function is assumed smooth

12. Developing “the” data set. Many people, organizations, file formats, coordinate-systems, decisions, definitions, authorities, issues, skills, tricks, uncertainties,Nas, errors, checks,… Publically available data Tax records, assesors, satellites GIS files – didn’t need package Difficulty merging – APN, (X,Y), address,… Response: 0-1 (destroyed) or continuous (sq ft) Explanatories: topography, vegetation, roofing, brush,…

14. TAX RECORD DATA – all houses AREA PERIMETER PARCEL_ PARCEL_ID PARCELID OVERLAY_JU POSTID POSTDATE SUBDIVID GRAPHSRC CONFACTR APNID APN_POSTID APN_POSTDA PENDING APN APN_8 MULTI OWN_NAME1 OWN_NAME2 OWN_NAME3 FRACTINT OWN_ADDR1 OWN_ADDR2 OWN_ADDR3 OWN_ADDR4 OWN_ZIP ASR_SITENA LEGLDESC ASR_LAND ASR_IMPR ASR_TOTAL ACREAGE TAXSTAT OWNEROCC TRANUM ASR_ZONE ASR_LANDUS SUBMAP SUBNAME UNITQTY ADDRNO ADDRFRAC ADDRUNIT ROADPDIR ROADNAME ROADSFX JURIS ZIP X_COORDY_COORD SITUS_ADDR SITUS_FRAC SITUS_SUIT SITUS_PRE_ SITUS_NAME SITUS_SUFF SITUS_POST YEAR_EFFEC TOTAL_LVG_ BEDROOMS BATHS ADDITION_A GARAGE_CON GARAGE_STA CARPORT_ST POOL PAR_VIEW USABLE_SQ_ OBJECTID

16. R. Martin

19. Analyses. spatial, spatial-temporal, binary, continuous R functions: str(), read.shapefile(), inout(), match(), read.xls(), read.dbf(), image(), as.numeric(as.character()), library(),…

20. str(L) List of 3 $ shp:List of 2 ..$ shp : num [1, 1:4] 1 309373 -549829 1 .. ..- attr(*, "dimnames")=List of 2 .. .. ..$ : NULL .. .. ..$ : chr [1:4] "record" "x" "y" "shape.type" ..$ header:List of 12 .. ..$ file.code : int 9994 .. ..$ file.length : int 64 .. ..$ file.version: int 1000 .. ..$ shape.type : int 1 .. ..$ xmin : num 309373 .. ..$ ymin : num -549829 .. ..$ xmax : num 309373 .. ..$ ymax : num -549829 .. ..$ zmin : num 0 .. ..$ zmax : num 0 .. ..$ mmin : num 0 .. ..$ mmax : num 0 $ shx:List of 2 ..$ index : num [1, 1:2] 50 10 .. ..- attr(*, "dimnames")=List of 2 .. .. ..$ : NULL .. .. ..$ : chr [1:2] "Offset" "Length" ..$ header:List of 12 .. ..$ file.code : int 9994 Example of shapefile contents

21. Looking at the point process data. Unincorporated SD County + Scripps Ranch Fire boundary Locations (destroyed and not) Rates/intensities and ratio

24. Looking at the continous data. m.p.p. : area of house (square feet) a cost proxy ($150/sqft) Smoothed sqrt(squared feet) Σ ZI K(x-xi,y-yi) Some descriptive statistics

27. Inference results. Point process case. Intensity of houses at (x,y) initially μX(x,y) Intensity of destroyed μY(x,y) p(x,y) = μY(x,y)/ μX(x,y) “probability” of a house’s destruction

29. Inference results. Continuous case. Square feet (from tax records) Is there a difference wrt squared feet between destroyed and rest? Estimate νV(x,y)/νU(x,y)

31. Does size depend on location? dN(x,y,z)/dxdydz = Σ δ(x-xi,y-yi,z-zi) Σ zi δ(x-xi,y-yi,z-zi) If Z independent of p.p. {X(x,y)}, average satisfies γ(x,y,z) = γ1(x,y) γ2(z) Consider γ(x,y,z)/γ1(x,y)

33. Explanatories. Vegetation type (15 categories) Slope Assessed improvement value Destroyed Structure location Square feet …

36. Logit-gam model results. Logit{Prob[destroyed|explanatories]} = γ(s) with s slope γ smooth

39. Spatial-temporal results. polygons wavefront How quantities in polygons depend on time Time defined as interval from midnight 25 October to last fire boundary

40. Observed fire boundaries

47. Economic Valuation: $$$ • Key distinction: • Social Cost (public goods) • (e.g., vegetation lost or air pollution) • Private Cost (private goods) • (e.g., properties or assets destroyed) • Short-run vs. Long-run Effects

48. Social cost - loss of Chaparral • Example of non-market valuation: • Stormwater runoff increased by 12 million cubic feet. • Cost of retaining is estimated at $25 million dollars. • Underestimation: This reflects only one dimension of value.

49. Downward trend in chance of destruction as assessedvalue increases.

50. Other thoughts. Damaged houses Other explanatories Other models Other fires Spatial correlation Uncertainties …